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a lot about death but as I imagined him laid in that small casket I was struck with an awful sense of wonder. I didn’t believe in heaven—the Pearly Gates version—so the question of what had become of Bobby Cole was mystifying and more than a little frightening.
    Gus entered the church. It was clear from his unsteady gait that he’d been drinking. He was dressed in his best which was a dark secondhand suit. His tie was askew and there was a cowlick in his red hair that stuck out at the back of his head. He sat in the pew across the aisle from Jake and me and he didn’t seem to notice us. He stared at Bobby’s coffin and I could hear the bellows of his lungs sucking air.
    My father finally appeared. He came from the door to his office, dressed in his black Wesley robe and wearing a white stole. He was a handsome man and impressive in his ministerial regalia. He paused as he passed the Coles and he spoke to them quietly and then he took his place in the chair behind his pulpit.
    Ariel ended her piece. My mother stood up. Ariel laid her hands again on the organ keyboard and paused and prepared herself then began to play. And my mother closed her eyes and composed herself to sing.
    When my mother sang I almost believed in heaven. It wasn’t just that she had a beautiful voice but also that she had a way of delivering a piece that pierced your heart. Oh when she sang she could make a fence post cry. When she sang she could make people laugh or dance or fall in love or go to war. In the pause before she began, the only sound in the church was the breeze whispering through the open doorway. The Coles had chosen the hymn and it seemed an odd choice, one that had probably come from Mrs. Cole whose roots were in southern Missouri. She’d asked my mother to sing a spiritual, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot .
    When my mother finally sang it was not just a hymn she offered, it was consummate comfort. She sang slowly and richly and delivered the heart of that great spiritual as if she was delivering heaven itself and her face was beautiful and full of peace. I shut my eyes and her voice reached out to wipe away my tears and enfold my heart and assure me absolutely that Bobby Cole was being carried home. It made me almost happy for him, a sweet boy who didn’t have to worry anymore about understanding a world that would always be more incomprehensible to him than not. Who didn’t have to endure anymore all the cruel mockeries. Who would never have to concern himself with what kind of man he would grow into and what would become of him when his aged parents could no longer protect and care for him. My mother’s singing made me believe that God had taken Bobby Cole for the best of reasons.
    And when she finished the sound of the breeze through the doorway was like the sigh of angels well pleased.
My father stood and read scripture from the pulpit but he didn’t preach from up there. He came down the steps instead and passed through the opening in the chancel rail and stood finally beside the casket. In truth I didn’t hear much of what he had to say. Partly it was because my heart was already full from my mother’s singing and my head was already stuffed with too much wonderment about death. But it was also because I’d heard my father preach a thousand times. People said he was a good preacher though not as fiery as some of his congregation would have liked. He spoke earnestly, never passionately. He was a man of ideas and he never tried with overpowering rhetoric or dramatics to muscle people into believing.
It was quiet in the church when he finished and the breeze that swept through the open doors cooled us and the flowers beside the coffin rustled as if someone had passed by.
Then Gus stood up.
He stepped into the aisle and walked to Bobby’s coffin. He put his hand on the polished wood. My father if he was surprised or concerned didn’t show it. He said, Gus, is there something you’d like to say?
Gus stroked the coffin as